CPU recommendations for WHS media server

[trancemitr]

I finally got the go-ahead from my wife to build a server for all of our movies and music. I had been pretty much sold on the low power AMD dual core route. I actually have an old BE-2400 laying around that could work.

However, when I recently read a bit about Vail's transcoding capability I did like the idea of watching stuff off of my server while I'm away on business. I do have to admit, however, that this won't be all that often.

I've looked at the x4 610e which would be low power (since the machine will idle most of the time), but having 4 cores "should" be enough for transcoding.

Should I forget about the (likely) seldom used transcoding and save myself some money? If I want to do the transcoding is there a better CPU alternative that will still be decently low power?

I should caveat this all by saying that I have never built a server. I do not plan to use the machine for duplication or backups; I'll have separate removable drives for that. Actually, until I read about the transcoding capability I'd thought about just going with a NAS, but I don't know anything about Linux and just felt more comfortable with Windows.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[vraa]

I would not settle for less than 16 cores.

 

[koolaidkitten]

using a socket 939 athlon64 x2 4400+.
works like a champ, so i imagine any current phenom dual core would work fine.

 

[danman]

I would not settle for less than 16 cores.

lol, Vail is limited to 1 physical proc and a max of 8GB RAM.

 

[MrCrispy]

You have read the latest announcement concerning Vail, right? Just making sure, here's the thread - http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1563863